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Compelling Explanations
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Ricardo Meana, 81, was charged with attempted murder in November after his 82-year-old wife (who reportedly has Alzheimer’s) was found in a supermarket parking lot, left alone in her wheelchair inside the couple’s minivan with a plastic bag tied over her head. Meana, who was in the store at the time, allegedly told authorities that his wife had felt sick and he’d put the bag on her head in case she vomited.
Pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Pierre, South Dakota, in April: Austin First in Trouble. (His victim was his father, Bernard First in Trouble.) Sentenced to life (at age 15) for murder in Providence in November: Phearin Rot. Linebacker at South Sumter High School in Bushnell, Florida, profiled in the Orlando Sentinel in August: Yourhighness Morgan.
According to a November profile in Canada’s National Post, a 41-year-old engineer in suburban Toronto–identified only by his online name, Witesock–has accumulated roughly 800 pairs of used socks worn by professional athletes and maintains a Web site featuring pictures, shot from midthigh down, of himself modeling his collection. (Sometimes one sock is seen pushed down to reveal an undersock or shin guard.) Witesock, who claimed his wife wasn’t aware of his hobby (she knew he had an “unusual number” of socks but hadn’t found the stashes in the basement and garage), told the Post that he wasn’t himself a fetishist but had at times accommodated some very specific requests from other sock fans; in one case, an Australian aficionado asked for a photo of Witesock wearing a particular pair of rugby socks with pie all over his face.
Least Competent Animals
